 So good evening everyone. I'm calling the meeting of the finance committee on March 30th to order. This open meeting of the Arlington Finance Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's order of March 12 2020 to the coronavirus pandemic. To mitigate the transmission of COVID-19, we've been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of the public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. What you can find posted with agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely, so long as reasonable public access is afforded to the public, so that they can follow along with the deliberations in the meeting. Ensuring public access is not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment only in writing by email to t bradley at town that aren't in that may that us. This can convening by zoom video app has posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join and comment. Please note the meetings being recorded and some attendees are participating by video conference accordingly please be aware that folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording the materials that have been provided members of this body are also available on the town's website unless otherwise noted. So, well now, before we turn to the first item in the agenda. Let me remind you that the chair will introduce each speaker on the agenda and after they conclude their remarks members will provide comment questions or motions. Please hold until you recognize your name is called. Please remember to mute your phone or your computer when you aren't speaking and please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquially with other members, please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. Due to the size of my laptop screen I may not be able to see all the members at once if someone has raised their hand and I have not noticed I hereby request the tower Bradley, or any court please bring this to my attention. I will now take the role. Please indicate your presence. Name. Grant give me in. Chamberlain Dell. Here. John Ellis. Kai. Here. Brian Beck. Here. brief area. Here. Sophie Migliazo. Here. Jonathan wallet. Here. Shailene Pocrus. Daryl Harmer. He's not here. Angela court. Here. Alan Jones. Here. George Koser is not here. Bill Keller. Here. Alan Tosti. Here. Juan de Nascimento. Christine Deschler. Here. Dean Carmen. He's not here. David McKenna. Here. Tara Bradley. Here. Thank you. We have a quorum. So the meeting is going to move forward. Tara, do you have the minutes to put on the screen? Yes. Here are the minutes from Monday. Can you. Oh, make it bigger. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. So these minutes have been distributed. Does anyone have any comments? Questions. Edits. Changes. Hearing none of motion to accept the minutes is in order. Okay. Move they be accepted. Second. Moved and seconded any further discussion on the minutes. Shane Blundell. Yes. Yes. Brian Beck. Yes. A brief bed area. I wasn't present. Sophie make. Yes. Jonathan Wallach. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here. Daryl Harmer. Any record. Here. Yes. Everyone. Alan Jones. Yes. And Bill Keller. Here. I mean, yes. Yes. Yes. Christine. Yeah. Yeah. And David McKenna. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Also, we have some guests tonight. I meant to see if any of them were here. I don't see them on the screen. But let me. Mention who's going to be here. We'll have the town manager, perhaps with some representatives of the clean energy. A future committee. Deputy town managers, budget analysts, Julie Wayman. In Goodwin, Alicia Russell and Joe and Robinson, they will probably come closer to the times that they are here. So. I would like to make a couple of comments before we jump into things. Recently sent out a copy, a draft copy of the special town meeting warrant. I believe that it hasn't been adopted by the select board yet, which I think they may be reviewing it tonight. There will be a couple of financial articles on there, one of which is to deal with that. I need to make a comment. I'm sorry, my name's Scott. Finance Committee reserve amount for this year of a million. One million $95,000 for the. School. Population growth. Coverage that we were concerned about last year. And the reason again that we're doing that in the special town meeting is so that. and can be used for next year's budget. They go into free cash. We can't really access them until at least the fall I think. For the record Tara distributed an updated water bodies committee budget reflecting the changes we in the water bodies group agreed to on Monday night. So that's now part of our written record. I also think I believe Tara sent another email out reminding all of us that we have to catch up on our ethics training. I strongly urge anybody who hasn't yet who's received this email and hasn't yet taken their ethics course and test please do so. There's a good chance that we will finish on Monday night April 4th. So please keep April 6th and reserve in the event that we don't finish but we may wind up with a holiday that night. Also keep in mind that we have a reserve date on April 14th pending the outcome of the house place and me's committee recommendation on the state budget. On Monday we in addition we're building any issues I say we like like it's the royal we but it's actually Tara doing all the work but we're building the the agenda for Monday night and there's several items that are on there if you check the website but we also want to add articles 64, 66, 69, 70 and 71. These are us you know some general articles that we have to treat at the end like pre-cash and contribution to the Override Stabilization Fund etc. Also I think I mentioned that Alan Jones sent out copies of your budgets for you to review to make sure that they are accurate. We will review all the budgets and all the warrant articles for consistency and accuracy on Monday night as well. So I think that's all I have there. Al Tosti do you want to make another pitch for the Association Town Finance Committee meeting? I don't want to beat it to death too much. You saw the email that was sent out has the agenda down the bottom so there's basically two workshops, a slight breakfast and a lunch and then you go home. So if you're interested let Tara know. Thank you. John I noticed that John Ellis is here. Hi John. There was one other thing that I wanted to mention which I didn't mention and that is when we get to the when we get to the hearing of the Arlington Historical Commission of fiscal 23 budget increase request I'm going to recuse myself from that and Christine Deschler is going to take over as chair. I have some activity in front of the commission and I don't want to be involved in reviewing that item in any way while that is pending. Oh Charlie? Yes. Oh sorry did you want to make a note about the deadline for the report, the finance committee report and the materials for the town meeting members? Well you mean the email that came out today? Yes. Well I sent a message out to you know they're asking for to have their report to the printer by the 6th. We may still be meeting on the 6th so we'll just have to deal with that separately. What are we doing for time here? 741. So the first item is this net zero green greenhouse gas emissions from town facilities. Is the town manager with us? I see Julie Wayman is here. Sandy and I are both going to be here tonight. Adam will not be here. Oh okay. What article is it? This is article number nine. Is anybody from the clean energies future committee going to be here Julie? May have lost her for a moment. I think this article came up because we at the time didn't know if this had a financial impact or not and if we are going to have net zero greenhouse gas emissions from town facilities that probably means at least we have to change the furnaces. I don't know but we'll see what we hear. Sandy has just joined. Sandy is joining? Okay. Hi Sandy. So welcome Sandy and Julie. The first item is this hearing on article number nine the net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Does that have any financial implications? Is that going to cost us money? Hi Charlie. Good evening you. Good evening to everybody on the committee. Nice to see you all. I will admit that I was just looking at the agenda. I thought that there was going to be somebody from the energy committee sustainability committee because I don't know a lot about this article. So I apologize. Julie I don't know if you do. So if you do please go ahead. I'll just add that in briefly talking to Adam what he had mentioned is that we are doing a building electrification study now and so this will potentially inform you know future by law changes but at this point the first step is going to be this building electrification study. That's been undertaken at a number I have a dozen schools right now to decide what to do about their HVAC issues which we know many of these schools have HVAC issues HVAC housing I forget what the V is NAC heat ventilation and air conditioning and so we know that we need to do something and the question is do we as Charlie just mentioned replace existing boilers or try to go to an all electric system as we are for example doing in the high school which is an all electric building and can we should we and can we convert some of these other other buildings. So this doesn't say that it's a study committee it says it's going to vote to report update and replace title one article 16. So I think at this point they don't they don't have recommendations yet for what to do to update the the current building code which has us saying that we want to be at lead silver standards for all of our building. I think I recall that as being our new building. Yes when we pass that lead it was for new new facilities not for existing buildings. Well I do think that part of the question is depending on what this study comes up with would it make sense to further change the bylaws to say that when we're doing major renovations or upgrades to heating systems that they should meet the new net zero standard and I think that is what they want to look at but they do not have a recommendation on that at this point. So I think I'm going to propose that the committee not consider this right now and we do will report my my feeling is that we change if we change the let's put it this way we're in a situation where we're facing a huge override coming up and if we change the bylaw that's puts an extra burden on on the capital budget and on the town it's going to cost us money I think we're going to be heading in the wrong direction if they come up with a plan where whatever changes we make are paid for by savings and fuel or something like that that's entirely different but I think we should not suppose in this article until we hear from the energy future committee and understand exactly what it is that they're proposing to do. Does anybody have any objections to that? Okay that's what we'll do we'll do a we'll report. So Shane can I ask you to follow up on that subject and make sure we we have a hearing during town meeting or you know at some convenient time before a town meeting and and come up with a committee opinion on it? Sure Charlie so have we invited the committee the clean energy folks would you like me to independently? No you can work with work with Tower do whatever research but just make sure that we have yes Julie. I just wanted to add one quick item that the select board did vote no action on this article last night. I think they still don't have a recommendation of what they want to do to propose any changes so they just need to get a little bit up in the air right now. I'll accept a motion from somebody that wants to move no action. So moved second. Okay so one article nine. Shane Blundell this is a motion that's positive if you want no action say yes. Okay no action. Makaya Healy? Yes. Brian Beck? Yes. Brief Padaria? Yes. Yes. Sophie Magliazzo? Yes. Jonathan Wallach? Yes. Annie LeCourt? Yes. Alan Jones? Yes. Bill Keller? Yes. Alan Tosti? Yes. Christine Deschler? Yes. And David McKenna? Yes. Okay thank you. So if this comes live again with the selectmen on some proposals then we need to have a hearing and find out whether there's a cost and how much the cost is but for now we're just following the selectmen. Okay thank you Julie that's nice that you're up to date on these things. The next we have a series of town management issues here the Peg Access budget article 46 article 40 collective bargaining 56 committees and commissions 57 town celebration events I don't I thought we did those but 58 miscellaneous and then the transportation infrastructure fund so are you prepared to discuss those so why don't we begin with article 46 Sandy? Just remind me then what the number is that it's at the Peg Access that's the Peg Access yes the ACMI budget we're right yes so I had sent to Tara earlier today the ACMI budget and I have it on my screen let me see if I can share it and then let me make it a size that is that visible Charles? Yes it is. Okay so I talked to Norma Cloud today he sent me these figures they are based on the numbers that they are seen from the number of subscribers that they have in town and the revenue that they're getting from the three cable producers these numbers are down slightly about 25 to 30 thousand dollars in terms of total revenue from where they were last year partly because they feel that during COVID they have seen people dropping cable just because it was a cost that they couldn't maintain he does feel that this will rebound as things start to come back but this is his realistic expectation of what their revenue is going to be their salaries and taxes have and associated taxes have come down slightly mostly because they had some staff turnover and the people they hired were hired at a lower salary than the previous people so overall from a year ago their budget is down as I said about it's about 34 thousand dollars from where they were before again reflecting what they think has been a slight decrease we have had to have town meeting both these budgets for the last couple of years because of changes to the law about Peg Access or the ACMI budget it used to be that we didn't get into this level of detail but now they provide us with this every year and unless there are questions I think that's pretty much everything I have to say about this thank you sandy are there any questions yes shane thanks sandy how many subscribers are there in town and how many I see the 505 how many staff does that support that is him you know I almost asked him that question I mean you know I talked today but I didn't I don't know chain I'd be glad to follow up with him he is more than happy to send the committee any information and so I will make sure to transmit your question and send it to Tara for the whole committee John Ellis yeah I wonder if economics is getting rid of cable but because of the lots of other services like YouTube TV and other ones that's that's what I've switched to and a lot of people I know have switched to so I assume we don't get the cable income when that happens and I would expect that trend to continue and if that trend does continue what what are they going to do if every year we lose another 10 percent of of cable subscribers people are moving to alternate web-based services there's legislation in the state house now that would impose fees on things like Hulu and other services or streaming services that would make up for some of that revenue loss as people have stopped subscribing to Comcast and so forth for their cable provision you know they may just have internet access anymore other states have adopted this law that would charge these streaming companies the revenue would then be split with I believe the numbers of 40 percent of the revenue would go to the state 20 percent would come to the town and 20 percent would go to the peg access although I may have those last two percentages mixed up I don't have revenue numbers but I do know that this is an issue that's being debated as as I say other states have already adopted this law and that may mean in the future that we will see streams of revenue to the town and to ACMI by charging these streaming services make sense thanks any other questions for Sandy so Sandy I have one what happens if the let's say the cable revenue drops operating funds does the town is the town liable for the revenue losses that ACMI has well I think it would be first up to ACMI to maintain a balanced budget during the year so if they were to see a precipitous drop they would just have to cut back on some of their costs just like any department would have to do down the road I think Charlie there's probably a policy decision that the town would have to make whether we would want to subsidize ACMI but that is something that we so far have not had to do and have not taken up and I you know I don't see that on the horizon so I will say I think that Arlington has a very active ACMI very active peg access they deliver a wide array of services I think we have benefited from them really being on top of things over the years and providing us good service more so than I think you may see even in other towns so you know we would keep an eye on that but I don't think we are legally obligated to pay their their costs if they don't have the revenue coming in I think that was really my question because for example in the enterprise funds the town has to provide if the revenues don't meet the expenses the town has to make up the difference this is not an enterprise fund this is some sort of independent legal entity of some from some sort I don't know what the yeah it was just set up under state law any money they don't spend from year to year they do retain and they do have a fund that they have put money in for like a reserve fund from any savings they've had from year to year and they've tried to you know invest that I don't know what the amount is I don't think it's a huge amount but they do have a little bit of backup in case they have a fallen revenue okay so any further questions yes Annie I see your hand is up yeah I just wondered Sandy do you know whether or not they're restricted in any way from raising revenue through subscriptions or other like earned revenue so they have talked about come back and forth around doing fundraising in the past I know they've had events I think some of those events have mostly broken even because they've been as much celebratory as they have been fundraising yeah they are thinking about the possibility of having I would call them I won't call them ads but kind of the same sort of sponsorship announcements that you hear on PBS or you might hear the name of a local business and you know this program is sponsored by you know XYZ company they have not gone to that yet because of their own reasons and they're still debating it but they did mention to me when I talked to them that that is something that they are looking at well as long as I don't have to listen to that that that I with the Scandinavian boats you know that you hear all the time well the same man I doubt that Viking cruises will will be the one sponsoring is your mind like you know you never know is that is that any okay thank you any any other questions for Mr. Pooler okay let's let's move to a vote is there a motion move that we accept the budget presented second it's moved in second then no further discussion we'll move right into a vote Shane Blundell yes Taya yes Brian yes Arif yes Sophie yes Jonathan yes yes you record yes I think you John Ellis oh I John Ellis yes thank you John thank you any yes Bill Keller yes Al Tosti yes Christine Deschler yes and David McKenna yes thank you the vote is unanimous the next is collective bargaining mr. pooler finance director pooler this is a big issue big article it is a big article tonight I do not have specific numbers for you although I think by the time town meeting comes around will we are very close with two unions the librarians I expect by the end of this week we will have a memorandum of agreement and get their support we're meeting with fire and I would expect that we will on Friday and I would expect that we will have a deal with fire soon and that we will be able to present that at town meeting but as I say we're still working out the final details with the fire union so you normally have a plug number the reserve number that we use in the yes to seal the oh yes so in the budget let me just get you that plug number unless truly you happen to have it I'm having to look it up do you want to announce that publicly well I don't mind doing that because I've come around Al in the old days when Steve Sorrell told me to hide money as best you can that that is the hallmark of a finance director to coming around to the position that if you don't tell the unions how much you have they're just going to make up their own number which is going to be ridiculously higher than anything you could possibly have so I think we're actually in better shape I see that Alan Jones has said 1,323,572. Julie I don't think that's what's in the budget but could you verify that I'm pulling up the our master budget right now that was in the budget for it might have changed so soon thank you Alan yes because we're just going to double check that so yes we will put forward a number for the FY 23 budget which Julie will pull up as in just a second or Julie do you have access to that you have your computer yeah sorry I'm I'm connecting yeah okay and then I do expect to come back to the committee for both the fire and librarian's union for specific recommendations for allocations to those departments to fund those contracts I will say that the other unions we have out there we are in close discussions with asked me but we have come to we've offered them their their last best offer which means that we are now in going to mediation where asked me something that we have not done with our these are mostly our clerical and DPW workers we've not done before but we're going to have to do that and that could be months before that anything happens on that for a patrol union we they have told us they attend the file for arbitration at the joint labor management committee that will probably be six months before we even have a first hearing on that just knowing how long that takes the other two unions that are not settled at this point are the ranking officers and other the sergeants lieutenants and police captains they have traditionally they have often in the past waited until patrol has settled before they've engaged in negotiations with us because they want to see what the pattern is we have reached out to them but I doubt that we will have anything for town meeting and then the last union is seiu we've had started conversations with them there's an outside chance we'll be able to get to them by town meeting but you know it's it's we're not very far along with them truly do you have that number yeah allen was right yeah one million three twenty three five seventy two thank you allen thank you julie so that's the number of we would like you to vote for the salary reserve it represents what we think contracts will cost in f y 23 and money in that to make up to put money in for how we have to bring things up from f y 22 uh all the contracts expired at the beginning of f y 23 except the librarians and seiu each of which went for a one-year contract um and we are trying to negotiate three-year deals with the where the unions to go for f y 22 23 and 24 so um does anyone have any further questions on this article yes ryan um sandy now do me a favor i don't want to step on any toes and you can say no comment because i understand um in general um how much is inflation affecting this is the with seven or eight percent inflation potentially out there i i you know i'm just like cringing at these thoughts um so without revealing our positions on the negotiations i would say that that is an area of discussion between us and the unions okay i'll wait till after john illis your negotiations are you asking for any work rule changes any streamlining or task change is that um something that's in discussion with any of these unions and what's the scope of i would say yes but i would not go into any of the details with you tonight we have formally or informally agreement with the unions at all discussions about negotiations are confidential until there's a final deal okay could some of those efficiencies and work rule changes reduce town costs um increase productivity yes thank you john john you can put your hand down alan jones hi mr chair can i do a little a short tutorial on how this works mechanically yes you can okay in article 49 we set aside money that the manager's office has said might be available for uh salary increases and such associated with collective bargaining if for example a settlements made between now and town meeting on let's say the fire uh union or let's say the police officer the ranking officer's union what would happen is that increase would go into their budget and the collective bargain article would be reduced by the same amount so the bottom line doesn't change we're shifting money from an unknown to a known if an agreement's reached so makes sense thank you thank you alan so any other questions for sandy on this article 49 okay um motion is in order for uh one million three hundred twenty three thousand five hundred seventy two dollars in uh article 49 what's the moved second so it's moved and seconded any further discussion okay we'll go to a vote um chain bundell yes john ellis yes yes brian beck yes harif padaria yes self-immigrant yes jonathan wallach yes any record yes alan jones yes yes bill keller yes alan toasty yes one of the next uh christine dashley yes and uh david mckenna yes it's unanimous thank you very much the next one is um committees and commissions article 36 um is there any open items there that uh yeah can you flip that uh that summer para yep so the only open items are the uh commission on disability and the arlington historic commission which is coming in later okay so we can um give you a holiday on that one sandy uh town celebrations and events don't go away uh tire we we need that screen up there is do you want me to pull up the um for the budget yeah we have four i think there are four items in there right but um yes um let me pull that up town town day a couple of parades sure what is it miscellaneous or something like that let's see here no it's not it's uh article article 57 town so flags on graves town day and veterans memorial and patriots day right um yeah it's didn't have a dollar amount and that's what we're trying to determine so um is there a recommendation from the town manager on those items julie i think can speak to that julie are you prepared to speak to that it's in the it's in the manager's budget book yeah i do um have the amounts that we did recommend in the budget if would that be helpful oh this yes i think that's any of this change no let me make my screen are we gonna have a town day this year yes they are um i believe two select board members are working on that okay and no those three numbers for 23 have not changed okay and then what was the fourth category um allen noraday and patriots they're lumped together in the top line and veterans they veterans they memorial day and patriots they're okay we got it right all right we have display of american flags on mass av which was last year was zero and um this year sandy correct me if i'm wrong but this year dpw is possibly going to be doing that right yeah around patriot's day this year that's correct okay so tara could you flip back to that budget book please thank you so um emotion is in order for the three uh categories shown on page uh 200 of the town manager's budget book uh five thousand six hundred and sixty seven dollars for vets a veterans memorial and patriot's day celebrations uh 45 hundred dollars for the display of flags and five thousand dollars for town day it's been second it's moved in second then any further discussion hearing um on article 57 we moved to vote here uh shane blundell yes john ellis yes kaya healy yes brian beck yes a reef padaria yes selfy migliazzo yes gavin wallach yes annie lecourt yes ellen jones yes bill keller yes altosie yes christine deshler yeah and david mckenna yes okay that's unanimously passed um um or an article 58 which was miscellaneous is that the one that was moved to the special town meeting really can address this one too mr chair that's the legal fund that indemnification yes oh okay yeah so we had just recently heard from um the doctor with a slightly adjusted number for this so um the actual number we'd gotten recently 10,941 so it's slightly up from the manager's budget okay um this is an article we deal with uh every year and um as julie said sometimes the number fluctuates a little bit um are there any questions for julie on this article okay um is there a motion so moved is there a second second okay so this is article 58 for um 10,941 dollars shane blundell yes john ellis yes kaya healy yes brian beck yes a reef padaria yes as oh yes um yes jonathan walk yes sorry i lost my place here uh any record yes ellen jones yes bill keller yes altosie yes christine deshler yeah and david mckenna uh i will have to abstain okay 12 in favor and one one abstention thank you so that article is passed then um we have the um transportation infrastructure fund article 59 sandy i think julie is going to pursue it okay so the um amount that we are um looking for town meeting to um approve this year is 13,807 and 20 cents this was the amount from 2020 from uber and lift rides originating in arlington can you repeat that so this sorry can you repeat that number yes 13,807 dollars and 20 cents so is that a tax julie on the um uber drivers or uber riders it is yeah and it it's a fee that the originating communities get a small portion of the 20 cents on the ride but it you know went down significantly in 2020 um but yes that is that is a fee that the towns the originates this is this is this is coming the state charges the charges the amount and they distribute it back to the town so this is the money from 2020 which we are going to appropriate into the 2023 budget yes and julie can you tell them how it's going to be used so um for sidewalks and pedestrian safety improvements similar to how it's been used in the years past um mean like fixing sidewalks yes yep we have recently um used some of it around the chestnut and mystic work that was going on and it might continue to be used in in that area but yes some of the sidewalks um around the center are there any further questions for julie on that subject uh motion is in order 59 so we're just moving to accept correct or are we moving appropriate we're we're we're moving to support the appropriation this is an appropriation okay so i move that we support the appropriation for 13 8007 and 20 cents yeah what he said second so it's been seconded any further discussion or questions shane blundell yes john ellis kyley yes ryan beck yes rief yes uh sophie mcvassel selfie yes yes okay john did i hear you say yes yes yes i'm your problem can you look for it yes alan jones yes bill keller yes al-tasih yes pristine deshler yeah david mckenna yes okay thank you very much that is passed um i think that's all we have on the list for you um um julie and sandi is there anything else that you wanted to uh bring up no there's nothing else i think that we need to talk about tonight julie do you have anything else no i don't think so well thank you very much we appreciate your sir mr chairman have we heard the barber barber have we heard the harry barber program i believe we did so they're staying with the 17 the 7500 dollars as last year same as last year so there is a warrant article uh there was a there is a warrant article in here that i think you could confirm for us um the one about changing the budgets from fiscal 22 that was the that had to do with the reserve fund and we're just going to vote no action on that right because it's going to be in the special town meeting correct okay good mr chairman have we heard the uh article that moves the budget process up uh no that's that's a good question i should have mentioned that um so i had a conversation with the chairman of the board of select men and um we didn't come to any conclusion other than the board is not going to discuss it until after the election probably on the 6th and sometimes so they're going and they're going to do a will report the town meeting and sometime between now and town meeting the finance committee and the uh select board will discuss this and determine if there's a compromise if there's a fight or if there's capitulation by somebody does that answer your question yes okay so um andy thank you julie appreciate your time thank you for your expeditious consideration tonight okay good you're welcome good evening thank you um i don't think there are other guests here yet what sign is it oh we're in a big gap okay so um we can jump to the uh to the subject that we've been postponing for quite some time which is the parking district um information it's it's basically old business it's been on the agenda before so we have some time we can address it right now and brian you handle it sure um or can you bring up the uh worksheet that i sent you yes or actually that i'm not sure it's the one that sandy said that has the two pages um yeah i think i have yeah one one second here okay so this i believe is the one maybe you sent yeah if you you can use the one that i sent which had the two pages on it if not you can use the one that sandy said yeah that's it that's it okay you make it a little bit larger because these are i i'm looking at my page and they're small let me try it let me just download it because it's not um resizing very well so let me let me download it and open it up as a PDF while she's doing that um basically um the issue in the in the parking district is the revenues that are coming in obviously because of the pandemic um historically um charlie asked a question about what it was in when they first started this which is around 2017 the anticipation of revenues was about $500,000 a year then i was back in 2017 and they were dancing around that number for the first few years until the pandemic hit um the actual revenues okay it's on the screen there um in the second box down in the middle i don't know if you can read it it's the you make it a little bigger tower please okay it's it's almost dead center right now this fiscal 22 actual until 323 um that number at is $227,000 um they they're based on that they're projecting for fiscal 23 309,000 for the year they're expecting for this year in the box that's the left of that number um and it has listed projected fiscal year 22 the projected revenues are $303,000 so they're basically $200,000 less than was anticipated when they started these programs um going to the upper right you'll see expenditures for fiscal um 23 um IPS CC or credit cards and coin collections um are basically uh fees that they have to pay to the different vendors IPS is the software company that actually um handles the meters that's $111,800 the lease payments which is next line down or at least pay our payments to the church for the parking spaces by the library so that's also um i believe there's a lease an actual lease on that um the parking enforcement is the um the persons that are shared from the treasurer's office and the um uh the police department there's a few remember in the the two budgets there was uh offsets and those offsets are from uh this particular budget now they have the multi-space meters of $64,000 now there's an issue going on right now which i don't know if everybody heard in the news um 3g was turned off by most of the carriers and our parking meters are 3g so they're they have two choices um in at this time one is to replace the meters the other is to upgrade the meters upgrading would be about $40,000 to $50,000 this budget shows 64,000 that's to replace the meters and do in doing so it would be much a much easier to repair the meters um apparently when they need parts for the meters it takes up to three to four weeks to get the parts for the current meters before they get fixed that hopefully will be alleviated when they get the new meter so the upgrading the meters they have would just be they think not futile but it wouldn't be cost effective in the long run um then there's the parking district um expenses which are listed down below if you go to uh Tara if you could just page down a little bit in that same column to the right a little bit more can you be yeah right there um the the top item of $50,000 is for sidewalk improvements um in Arlington Center uh the next line the Russell common uh lot they plan to do new lighting and fix up the pavement there that's 65,000 uh snow removal has been taken out of the budget it's going to be handled by DPW um seasonal planting they put plants in the planters there on an annual basis and then taking care of everything is an additional $40,000 now the $40,000 um is also in also in regards to expanding the parking district which was approved by the selectman there the parking district is now going to include Chestnut Street in that area around Chestnut Street where they plan to do a lot of improvements and part of this money is going for that which includes crosswalks um and other in meters in that area so the whole budget for expenditures is $487,000 $487,540 the revenues are $309,260 and that leaves a shortfall and I have to get out to the next page below it I've tried to do a recap of there is cash in there in their fund right now uh let me rephrase there's cash in the beginning of fiscal 22 of $472,000 they estimated the current um current year revenues of $303,000 and the expenditures that they anticipate for this year's $319,000 that leaves at the end of the year 400 actually let me use let me look at my numbers because I can't see the screen 456,764 dollars coming into fiscal year 30 uh 23 so we're budgeting a revenues of $309,260 expenditures the 487,540 at the end of the period there'll be 278,484 dollars left in their fund questions? Mr. Brian yes Alan Jones thank you mr. Chair I noticed there was $25,000 for sidewalk cleaning around the blue bike station would would that be required if the blue bike station wasn't there? I don't know I asked I asked about that uh they just said it's just I don't think the blue the blue bike station had anything to do with it except it was the location okay thank you any other questions okay um so we don't actually Charlie sorry I was I don't know you may ask a question yes please it's so this 3g is going away but I I use a lot of the pay by phone so can we not just switch everything to pay by phone and not take on any more hits or is this uh have they thought through that? I have no idea I didn't address that I actually got the budget today yeah but has anyone here used pay by phone? I use it but I think um I think the credit cards also require the wireless yeah they require the use of credit cards too require okay so we have to go back to throwing quarters on the meter yeah okay thank you well honestly uh Arif that that's a pretty good idea but the problem is I think they've already invested all the money in the meter so it's a it's a sunk cost in general because if you think about it if you used pay by phone you wouldn't need the meters at all because you just park in a specific area and they would have your license plate number when you park they would they'd have that be able to check it okay hopefully one day they'll all get rid of them okay thank you thank you Arif um any other questions for Ryan okay so we um we don't really appropriate this money this money is being spent uh check me if I'm wrong on this Brian but I think this is uh this parking district fund is a self-standing fund yes I believe it's off budget yeah so uh as part of the agreement between the finance committee and the town when we supported the creation of this parking district fund they would um come to us uh with this information each year and we would uh either support it or not support it but we're not actually um voting it or recommending it to town meeting to vote because town meeting doesn't vote on it what what town meeting votes on is the parking budget that we we already we already voted on um a couple weeks ago so um last year there was endorse yeah didn't I just endorse it I thought I used the word did I use the word endorse or use I said support but endorse yeah I moved to endorse it as presented uh there's more movement to uh motion to endorse their second okay so let's uh take a vote here uh Shane Blundell yes John Ellis yes Mikhaili yes Brian Beck yes Ari Padaria uh yes Sophie Bigliazzo yes Jonathan Wallach yes Annie LaCorte yes Alan Jones yes Bill Keller yes Alan Tosti yes Christine Dettler yeah and David McKenna yes okay thank you the the finance committee favorably endorses the parking district uh fund budget okay we are being so efficient tonight um it's boggling my mind here um do we have any nobody's here for the next budget right mr chairman yes uh I don't think we voted article 52 which is amendments to 2020 budgets so if we have it I'd move no action on the grounds that we're doing it in the special uh that's appropriate is there a second second so it's moved yes Alan who has hands up did you have your hand up no no I did a sort of different question you can ask it uh I I don't have a recording of the vote of the hundred that usual hundred thousand dollar appropriations a long-term stabilization fund have we done that no we're putting three those on Monday okay thank you Monday next um it's been moved and seconded on article 52 for no action any further discussion chain lindell yes uh john ellis yes kaya healy yes a reef padaria oh no brian brian beck yes a reef padaria yes so he may go as well yes Jonathan wallach yes any record yes and jones yes teller yes alan tosti yes pristine deshler yes and david mckenna yes okay um um well let's uh let's do that um it's not it's not on the agenda but let's um the uh what was the article you just referred to um alan harry barba uh so no no we voted that already uh 70 the appropriation of the long-term stabilization fund it's typically a hundred thousand is that in the manager's um but it would be around page 195 page 202 right there hundred thousand dollars right okay so um alan you want to make a motion for that i move an appropriation of a hundred thousand dollars to the long-term stabilization fund second moved and seconded and what's the article number uh oh 70 70 70 okay all right uh any further discussion on this article chain lindell yes john ellis well kaya healy yes brian beck yes a reef padaria yes uh sophie migliazo yes jonathan wallach yes daryl any record yes alan jones yes bill keller yes al tosti yes wanda nascimento oh she's on here christine deshler yeah and david mckenna david mckenna i think we lost david he's we can still see him moving is he still on the screen maybe he lost his sound oh he's waving back dav can he not i don't know i just lost i just lost i vote yes on that okay thank you david nice to have you back okay let me just take a quick look at the warrant okay we could vote the of the appropriation for the overlay reserve article 69 so the as i mentioned on tonight the board of assessors has voted 750 thousand to give 750 thousand dollars back to the town from the reason overlay reserve surplus surplus so the concept here is to vote four hundred thousand dollars into the budget for fiscal 23 which is what we have planned and the additional 350 thousand dollars to put into the override stabilization fund so so we would i'm just uh alan have you got a way to think about how to earmark this money well i think we just have to make a motion to transfer four hundred thousand to i guess to be expended to be appropriated and 350 to the stabilization fund um you have at the stabilization fund is this is a separate um a separate article yeah um why don't we just do four hundred thousand like we always do do that vote and then when we get to the uh fiscal stability fund we'll just add the 350 to the balance uh the 350 comes from the over uh uh the overlay in other words don't do it yeah i think to balance it maybe we should appropriate 750 000 transfer from the overlay reserve and they just increase the fiscal stability by 350 when we get to that article or decrease the take from okay so tonight what we'll we'll accept this we'll transfer the the um we'll vote in support of the 750 000 and vote um put 400 000 into to the into the operating budget and leave the remaining 350 000 until we go to the override stabilization fund article yeah i mean if we if we don't increase any other appropriation by 350 000 then it'll just fall into a lot of the the override stabilization article okay alan jones you want to make a motion well first let me ask question is anyone have any questions on this in the um before we before we make a motion can i just charlotte's go right ahead shane can somebody just repeat that one more time for the folks in the back just so i understand what we're doing here yeah so okay so normally um the the board of assessors determines that they have excess or surplus funds that they have in reserve for for covering abatements and um former finance committee chairman alan toasty raised the issue uh about a month ago as to whether or not we were getting enough money from those reserves into the override stabilization fund to deal with the upcoming um overrided problems etc and um i recently had a conversation with um mary win stanley o'connor one of the assessors they voted to increase the amount from the normal 400 000 that they have been doing to 750 000 and they also will do a review i asked i asked them to do a review of what their needs are in other words take a look at the last five years see what's how big the abatements were and any tax judgments and uh against them and so forth and and then come forward look forward for the next several years as to what they think they need and we can put that in mr uh five-year plan mr chair just one personal suggestion if we just go ahead and appropriate or transfer the whole 750 000 which just basically gets used to pay the bills then it'll automatically like alan said reduce the amount of money we have to take from the override stabilization fund so it'll accomplish the same thing yeah so i i have a motion go ahead and i'm reading from last year's with one edit that the sum of 750 000 be and hereby is appropriated to be transferred from overlay reserve surplus accounts of previous fiscal years said some to be utilized in the determination of the tax rate second it's moved and seconded um so um you have um let me ask you Shane um has is your question answered um i i think so it sounds like this is not surpluses from one fiscal year but maybe across multiple fiscal years uh well yeah the overlay reserve i mean they they have abatements and they have tax disputes etc so in any given year they might resolve disputes that have been going on for three years or four years so um they have to make a judgment as to how much money they need to handle in their reserve account to to deal with the various abatements over time okay so and all that information in general is executive session privileged i mean it's a dispute between citizens and the board of assessors um it's it's a privilege until they make a decision and then uh when they make a decision they've either used so much or not used so much so and we we also appropriate money into the overlay reserve so uh as an expense so that bounces out over the years and the the question that was raised uh by al-tasi some weeks ago you know our is that is that reserve building up too much and and so they were willing to give us give the town um somewhat more almost twice as much as they normally would but we still we still would like to get from them a reasonable assessment is what's needed in the future because that does the town surplus or deficit thank you so so in other words we have a surplus of a 750 and we're going to vote or at least the vote on the table is to take that money and put it into the operating budget and then but sort of over the long term we've asked the assessors to sort of take a look take a look back maybe sort of predict looking back and sort of predict what they'll need in the future maybe maybe they'll come back and say they don't need as much every in future fiscal years we hope so okay all right thank you yeah they're their account um what when uh I don't know whether it was al or um brian beckler whoever was doing the assessors budget um they got a printout of the reserve account over the last probably eight years or something like that and it varies I think the lowest was that was two million and the highest was four million so um you know maybe they they can overall lower it by a million and just keep going forward that way thank you you're welcome any other questions so it is moved and seconded to transfer $750,000 dollars um from the overlay reserve surplus um so we'll move go to a vote uh what article was this 69 59 okay shane blundell yes john ellis yes yes kaya haley yes brian beck yes arief padaria yes sofie migliazzo yes jonathan wallach yes yes any record yes alan jones yes bill keller yes alan toasty yes christine deshler yeah and david mckinnon yes so it's cash unanimously um so just don't anybody get too fancy and try to spend that extra $350,000 we wanted to go into the overall overage stabilization let's keep that in by charlie i have a question about article 68 this might have been voted on when i wasn't here um was the vote 100 to transfer $150,000 from from lost in graves um okay i don't have that in front of me do we can um tower do you have that yeah uh yes we had two numbers 15,000 and then there was another um three seven let me get the minutes up from three seven yeah we we did the capital budget i think but i don't know if we did dpw if we haven't done dpw we can do dpw how much is dpw it's 180,000 we just did this $10,000 piece from capital planning okay so we can do the dpw article 68 i believe so um is that is that the number in the town manager's budget book let's just check that would this be in the dpw budget no it would be in the miscellaneous articles i think more on articles i don't see it the offset in the cemetery budget is 180,000 and that is traditionally the okay that's the answer the amount okay so christine you want to move that i i yeah i don't know what the language is it's article 68 but i moved that um the 180,000 is taken from uh the sale of lost in graves and or professionals here for um cemetery operating costs usually just say well let's see what we said last year yeah whatever we said the last year the number this year is 180,000 100 you know 180 to the cemetery commissions for the care of the okay it's been moved is there a second second any further discussion jane blundell yes john ellis yes kaya haley yes brian beck yes are you yes sofie migliazo yes john hanwallek yes any record yes ellen jones yes bill keller yes altos yes christine deshler yes and david mckenna yes thank you that is also past good good work so it's nine o'clock i think um do we have our guests uh in goodwin and elicia russell here for article 16 yes i'm here this is and i'm here this is elicia wonderful welcome to the finance committee meeting thank you thank you so um this is the um this is the article on amendment uh bylaw noise amendment for gas powered leaf blowers yes so um can you um what you intend to do with this article do you want a summary of the of the article is that what you're asking yes or or if you have the actual actual language that you plan the front of town meeting then can tell us um if there are costs associated with how much those costs are well so essentially we're the um purpose of the article is to phase out gas powered leaf blowers over the next three years so by march 15th 2025 for municipal and commercial use until march 15th 2026 for residential use we are um so we we there are some costs that we think might be associated with it i don't really know exactly how much they'll be but i can i can outline what areas we think they're they're going to be in so the facilities department owns uh i think it's eight wait a second i've got it the dpw has about eight gas powered leaf blowers now um mike uh rottemacher has uh told me he thought maybe it maybe about one a year would need to be replaced so that would leave five that had not been just replaced you know from natural attrition at the time that the phase out would take place so they would need to be replaced he estimates about 500 each so this happens in 2025 the facilities department has 15 leaf blowers and they replace about three a year um so uh jim finney said he thinks they would replace maybe 10 maybe all of the ones oh they've already replaced three of them with electric leaf blowers so they are already in the in the process of replacing the gas powered ones when they wear out with electric ones so um they're already in the process of doing this but if they have not completely done that by march 15th 2025 they might need a bump in the capital appropriation to to replace whichever ones are are left which could be two or three uh of these leaf blowers and he he thought at the out at the outside it would be about uh $2,000 to do that so so that's what we know about replacement of equipment then alicia is going to say some things about uh licensing or permitting and um and education costs i just wanted to make sure you didn't have any questions for an regarding those oh thank you why don't why don't you uh just go on with your part and then we'll come back with that okay um okay so we would anticipate that permits in the warrant article we ask that permits be required for landscape companies and um we see this as a public health issue that's the way it's been characterized in other places because of the noise and pollution caused by gas powered leaf blowers and because the board of health already has online forms for permits and complaints that are related to public health we're proposing that the board of health be responsible for the permits and complaints the board of health has a mechanism for online permitting and so it looks when we look at it that it could be easily added the request for a permit could be easily added we see this as being a $25 permit and then um the landscape company would indicate the number of vehicles it uses i don't know if you want this much this detail or not but they would get stickers for these so that would be the cost of the stickers and if they needed to be they would also be given a flyer about the the regulation and what the the really regulation was that can be downloadable or they can be given to them at the time then um this is being done in other towns so it's similar in other towns also require this kind of permit for leaf blower for landscape companies to use leaf blowers and then in terms of complaints again the board of health has complaint forms when when things are violated when when regulations are violated and so people could use the online complaint form which would include um perhaps pictures the it would include very specific things which we've outlined below are in our in our in our discussion and that would be where it took place the name of the company that was making the violation and um any kind of evidence and that would be submitted via this complaint form to the board of health we don't because of the education component we don't anticipate that there would be an enormous number of complaints not as at least not when people had been fully educated and then there would be fines for violations so we don't see we don't anticipate a lot of costs associated with those things since the mechanisms already exist um any yeah so my question is most likely to do with the effect of this bylaw do you um are electric um leaf blowers known to be quieter than gas powered yes they are substantially quieter okay and one of the issues with one of the health issues with leaf blowers as i understand it is the amount of material they stir up when they're used that's still going to be a problem correct well we won't have the gas pollution and we won't have the noise pollution but we will still have dust moving around that would not otherwise be disturbed correct okay one um excuse me just one second one of the the points that we're trying to make is in terms of education about proper use of leaf blowers as well so even if people are using electric leaf blowers they're not necessarily using them most effectively and the education component would help them perhaps stir up less dust even with electric leaf blowers okay that's it charlie allen jones thank you charlie um i believe lexington and brookline have uh passed these uh a similar ban pretty overwhelmingly so i guess one question is how is this it is pretty much identical to the uh bans in lexington and brookline or is good can we look at their experience to yes i i think you could they're they're yes they're similar of course we haven't passed it yet so we don't know you know what exactly arlington might pass but our um the timing of the phase out in ours is exactly the same as lexington's um the hours are similar the restricted hours are similar they did not require a permit and that's something that you know we would like to require but yeah they're very similar sorry brookline does require a permit and they have a complaint mechanism lexington doesn't okay so question two i think both of those are being challenged by the landscapers and i'm concerned about legal fees legal costs of the town oh lexington's uh yeah i don't know what the what the state of that challenge is now i know that it was voted overwhelmingly at town meeting then there there was a referendum because the landscapers objected and then it was again you know uh voted in in the referendum so i don't know what's happening now okay yeah i i'm concerned about it if somebody sues the town about you know any legal fees from much from defending it uh against the challenge yeah it's a good question let's we could look into that okay thank you so yes thank you so um my concern is about the cost associated with um enforcement or even if i understand correctly there's nobody actually going to see right you just submit your complaints with photos and that's all the best but what about the cost or are there costs associated with um sending out the fees and trying to actually collect fines and do you have any information from brookline about how many complaints and the workload associated with following through with the complaints enforcement um we don't have any about about that but in terms of we're not um anticipating people would go out to investigate this would be done in in washington dc this is all done online and they passed theirs in january and so we know uh a little bit more about that um brookline i can ask them what the the situation has been but the the idea would be that um it would all be there's already a complaint mechanism again through the board of health for complaints and it would follow along with the similar kinds of complaint arrangement but i can look into brookline and see have you actually um had you spoken with the um held human services about what they consider if they see this as something they can handle um the board of health we because we were waiting to see uh how the select board um voted on this and and on our um our second round went when we had made some uh we read we addressed some of their concerns we don't know what the wording would be yet but certainly we did talk to the board of health um about the the um the warrant article but not specifically about those issues howling jones all right makaya thank you um you may have said this already but is there a financial penalty for the violation yes how much is that it uh let's see i have to look at the we set a warning for the first violation 100 for the second and 200 for everyone after that and this is in line with other towns as well and sorry i follow up do you have a sense of where that money might go um into the general fund say that fund again it has to go into the general fund perfect it's a local um local receipt al toasty do you have a sense of when you're going to make a decision well they're not they didn't talk about it monday they're not talking about it tonight so maybe next week we haven't shown up on their agenda again since we presented and i think that doug heim is still working on the wording yeah they did pass it um initially with just a request for uh for doug heim to look at it and for a few um changes that we made so we don't know okay so they have to vote but they're still waiting for additional information yes they they they did approve it at our presentation a couple weeks ago but asked for a couple of chat they still had some questions and asked for some changes so we're working on a revision and doug heim's working on the language and did i read correctly that you said the electric leaf floors are about the same cost as the gasoline ones yes okay uh thank you thank you al uh arief yes thank you mr chairman uh the question is about the 25 dollars per calendar year that permit cost do you think that's uh that's appropriate is that high enough um given and i'm guessing that is for these commercial landscape companies correct and if they're using those uh that equipment uh in a commercial fashion shouldn't that number be higher shouldn't that license fee be higher what would you suggest sorry i have no suggestion i would have to be based on some analysis um from the you know surrounding towns and yes perhaps a particular uh you know a lot more involved than i would want to comment at the moment but thank you i would ask you to consider that yes thank you we we based it on the what we saw in the other towns and so that was the only reason we selected that amount okay thank you thank you any other questions for alisha or an on this um leafblower article so you don't have the final wording from doug heim yet that actually says what we're going to do no have you any information on the operating costs of these uh devices in other words um how long the batteries last and and um i guess where i'm headed with that question is what what happens we we have a uh path of action that are municipal they're out there with their with their power uh with their rubbers and they have if they run out of fuel they have a gas tank go in the truck or something like that they load up they keep on working um my experience with electric devices particularly i mean my experience is limited to my power drill but you know you have to take the battery out and charge it and it takes a while to charge it and i don't know if that is a factor in the use of these electric blowers or not you have any information on that in other words is it going to cost us more to operate with these things alise we do have we do have some some information about that um do you have that those numbers in your head alicia i don't have the numbers in my head i but i remember is that it's uh 30 minutes to 45 minutes and so typically people have more than one battery and um this is one of the upfront costs but the they do last longer because they're not they don't have these moving parts with gas and oil running through them so apparently the the life is longer we uh than a gas powered leaf blower um the charging in some cases can there are some charging stations we've been told or if people things can be charged in trucks so anyway there are we can we can provide you with well i just don't have it right in front of me but we could provide you with more information about that if that would be helpful there are commercial landscapers who are you know operating with all electric equipment successfully you know and some municipal departments that are changing over so it is workable it's being done so i don't know exactly how they're doing it but we can look into that somewhere christine dashland i just want to tell them what i thought i heard that we are already doing this right that that already the facilities in the dpw department have voluntarily decided this is the way to go right the facilities department is replacing their leaf blowers with electric uh the dpw has replaced some of their string tremors with electric ones but have not started converting the leaf blowers yet okay thank you any other questions okay so i think the i think the the the question that is before us is whether or not this the potential cost of these this conversion is legitimately a worry for the finance committee or do we think that it's purely a select board article mr mr chairman yes alan um i'd like to make a motion the finance committee take no position i think the costs of this are uh are fairly margin uh especially going forward and uh i think without the cost being an issue uh this becomes a select one policy issue and so i i think we take no position i second alan second second john ellis you have your hand up i was i was just going to second that i was just going to second that motion okay a million dollars okay any further discussion alan jones um thank you but on the other hand i think that if at town meeting uh someone asked the question whether the finance committee thinks there'll be any financial implications we need to be prepared to answer that even if it's not in the report and i think so so far we haven't identified any costs other than any direct costs other than replacement of leaf blowers and it sounds like that's happening anyway so there's no real additional cost uh that's a comment right yeah i just think we should be prepared to answer if a test any other comments okay uh well then move to it's been moved and seconded for um the finance committee to take no action on this article no position no position sorry yes um shane blundell yes john ellis yes vikaya healy yes brian beck yes harry pardaria yes sofi migliazzo yes darryl um sorry annie lecourt you forgot me charlie oh sorry john yes yes okay annie lecourt yes bill keller yes altos the yes uh christine deshler and david mckinnon yes okay uh so the finance committee is not taking a position on this article so um and um alisha got off scott free thank you very much good thank you thank you very much for coming thanks for all you do thanks everyone thank you thank you okay the next item on the agenda is the arlington historical commission uh fiscal 23 budget increase request i am recusing myself from this discussion and handing the chair over to christine deshler christine and we have joey and robinson who is um the chair of the the chair of the historical commission arlington historical join yes um i just hang on one second okay where are you christine there you are i am here um i just want to confirm as robinson is anyone going to join you are you representing the the uh historical commissioning on your own it's i am and as i understand it you are looking for an increase in your budget from um two thousand six hundred and sixty dollars to a five thousand dollar appropriations that correct yes and i think you um provided us with a memo um para can you hold that up for us i i have a one page description of why you know if you don't mind i'd rather i can share that or that'd be great better you know whichever great go ahead all right thank you um i have to just be sure i've got the right thing okay okay sorry so i'm gonna go down a little bit um our current budget as you mentioned is two thousand six hundred and sixty dollars and um in this current fiscal year as of january because of the numbers of hearings and um the administrative support that was um required to uh do that work um we uh are already at three thousand five hundred and five fifty two dollars and sixty six cents um against our current budget um we exit you know i i expect that we are going to top five thousand um i i did a rough estimate the numbers of hearings that we hold um continues and it hasn't slowed down but i wanted to also just show you an example of the hearings that we have had um over the in you know in 2021 and the commission um actually has had triple the number of hearings from the prior year to uh to this you know current fy 21 or 2021 i mean and um we've had 33 inventory properties and that is the life the actual largest number of hearings that we have ever had um in the history and it's because i i think it's probably because of the the boom the real estate boom that's happening in arlington and many of our properties which have been sold are come up for hearings to change the exterior of the house in addition we've had two bylaw that you know violations and so that takes us so much longer time to to work out and so we have repeated continued hearings under those circumstances and uh in many cases um we can't resolve a hearing i mean a formal hearing in one meeting but we have to do it in multiple meetings um and some of that is due to zoom but i think that i i have not seen in the first few months of this year any decline in the number of hearings that we're having monthly so um and so that's the reason that i'm asking to have an increase because um the cost you know for for this whole boom of 33 inventory properties coming before us including and we also do sign hearings which i didn't include in this um and then monitoring all of these projects um and reporting back on them that's what has increased our budget i mean and so this is this is what i think we need to do in order to uh have a substantial enough budget for covering this kind of work i'm welcome to you know i'm happy to answer any questions about this is this been a very rigorous year for us we have been having hearings from 730 until 10 or 11 or even 1 until midnight because of the fact that we have so many hearings thank you okay so questions um what questions do people have uh alan jump uh thank you it it looks like you're going to be way over budget for fiscal 22 what what do you do when you run out of money we have we have because i i went to the sandy pool or to find out what we were going to do because i was uh you know i was worried about that but we do have a certain over from former years when we haven't been it we haven't used all of our budget and so i think we'll be okay for this fiscal year but the next one not thank you so thanks yeah thanks christine um speaking of zoom please zoom out a little bit can you just um for somebody who's not as familiar with the work of the commission and thank you for all the work that you do can you just give me sort of a just a sort of brief explanation of the sort of jurisdiction of the commission and who are the members and sort of what happens in the hearings okay um so our commission has a list an inventory list of properties that have been you know sort of researched and certified as significantly historically or for for some other reason like you know a a significant house that had a person who would living in it and so we have um i can send you all a list but we have a fairly extensive number of um those properties and um they are all approved both by the historical commission and by the massachusetts historical commission and we have jurisdiction over any facade of those houses that is visible from the street and so when people that one of the biggest things that we have had for hearings this year are um window changes and so people who want to change 25 windows that you know are on the house and we have to go through a hearing about what materials they're using etc and our mission is to preserve the house and the details of the exterior um as you know as well as we can we try to work with um the people who come before us to understand um why we do this kind of thing and um you know sometimes they have you know they have a lot of objections to the kinds of restrictions that we put on the house and so we have to go through that several times and work with them but you know it it's a it can be a long process or it could be just a very quick process if if they understand the significance of their houses. Does that give you what we do for the hearing is that we ask each proponent to come in and give us a picture of the current you know situation of the property and then tell us what it is uh in details uh in terms of what materials they want to use to repair or you know reside or whatever it is um we do have a restriction on ourselves in that we have um only if there is a 25 percent change on the facades but it's it's generally if they're you know replacing a porch or doing siding or anything like that it exceeds that. Does that answer your question Shane? Yes thank you Joanne. You're welcome Ari. You're you're all welcome to come to a meeting and and see what we do too. Ari do you have a question Ari? Yeah yeah thanks Christine um so Joanne a great work and thanks for that detailed explanation really gives me also an idea as to what what goes on in the work that you do so I have a question about um so so certainly a lot of hours has been spent and on good hard work and and such but I'm just trying to understand um 22 was certainly hectic so you blew through that budget but what's sort of what uh you know I run sales in corporations and you have projections and you you think about you know what's coming for the next year and so in the in that line of thinking you know what gives you a sense that 23 is going to be just as hectic as 22 was in terms of the then the cost so is there a pipeline of these hearings that you already have set up and and and thus uh that cost is coming from those project is that what it is or yes here to me from here from the what no I know um I we already have um a number of hearings that are ongoing I just put move this over but I I have to say we have to advertise the hearings in advance of the um you know the meetings that we have and so I've been trying to compress the hearings so that the it used to be that we would do an individual hearing for each property but now I try to compress it into a shorter um you know a group of hearings that I I advertise for each month that you know two two weeks before we hold the hearing and so it runs twice in the advocate and then we also then have to um we do work you know our administrator answers phone calls um and does the the minutes and comes to every meeting and um and she also we get demolition every house that has applied is applied for a demolition in Arlington has to be approved by us if it's not on our inventory we have to write letters to um to approve the demolition that we're for properties that we are not responsible for and anyone that is planning to demolish has to come before us for a hearing to so it's it's uh it's fairly complex it's I mean it's relatively complex and and many times people have purchased houses but they don't really uh you know understand um why we're doing what we're doing um does that answer your question Arif I'm not sure but but thank you I just want it off for now all right Alan well I think this is very important work and this you know committee of volunteers have been doing a great job uh I can understand the increase in load I think the increase is justified so if it's appropriate I'd like to move the $5,000 budget for this year second before we put to a vote I have a couple of questions of my own do you see that you will need an increase in your budget even beyond next fiscal year um I don't know for sure I mean I can track it for you and come back and you know tell you what has happened and if we need to you know adjust it or something like that that's you know that's something that and and the your budget is used for advertising during mostly for advertising we also are planning to do workshops because we haven't we haven't usually we have been we try to inform people about the fact that they have a historic house and we're we're planning to do a workshop a couple of workshops on those things so that we can educate people too as well I mean I think I think we've got to do that a lot of people who are completely new to historic preservation and you say you having a pay administrator working for you oh yes yeah and is that covered by this budget as well yes yes those are my questions are you if you have another question yes yes one thank you just one quick one so these are homes first of all it would be interesting to see what these homes are and if there's a list somewhere on our linkedin website in case I wanted to purchase one then I would know what I'm getting into so number one you know number one whether I want to get into that or not and then if I'm actually purchasing it and getting into a historical home I would realize that and therefore there would be certainly I would accommodate for for extra costs that could come up in maintaining such a home so my point now is really if somebody buys this house and I buy modern homes but other people may buy this kind of historical house then it is the isn't the onus on them to pay all the cost for that house to maintain it and thereby pay your budget and perhaps even pay a lot more for your services has that been thought through why is the taxpayer such as myself taking on even I'm this is a very small amount of money granted but at the same time I'm asking a macro question in terms of why are we as other taxpayers who don't have these historical homes taking on the cost of a even an assessment or an evaluation for a somebody who's bought a historical home and wants to do some upgrades and so forth but I hope you see the relevancy in that question and I hope I'm not overstepping any bounds but that's sort of the issue here. Do you have a quick response to that miss Robinson? We don't actually charge for a hearing I mean because the town has agreed that we are responsible for doing those hearings and we're a volunteer community you know commission the if in fact there is a like the people who are in violation of the the bylaw and we work with them then sometimes they can be thought they can be fined and we work with building Mike Champa and the building inspection inspectional services to to work on that but that it's this is I've been working with the historical commission for probably 20 years and we have never charged for a hearing. Makaya you have a question. Thank you Christine and thank you 20 years is a long time is semi-related to Arif's question about purchasing a home and do you have a set of manual a manual that you give to? Yes I'll send you we have a design guidelines that we send out and we also have I'll send you a we're in the process of upgrading our web page and but I'll send I can send you a link to the historical commission's web page and you can also find information on the town's website. Great if you could send that to our executive secretary Tara. Sure that would be great. I'd be I'd be pleased to do that. All right so we have a motion by Alan Jones second and I believe by annula court unless people have any questions we'll take it to a vote. I will use my my list. All right Grant Gibyan I think is not here standing Blundell? Yes. John Ellis I think he just left. Makaya Healy? Yes. Brian Beck? Yes. Arif Padaria? Yes. Sophie Magli is Ciazzo? Yes. Jonathan Wallach? Yes. Charlie Foskett are you abstaining? All right Shailene Crawford? I abstain. Is Shailene with us? No. All right Daryl Harmer? Also not here. Annula Court? Yes. Alan Jones? Yes. George Kosor I believe is absent Brian Keller? That's Bill Keller and yes. Sorry Bill Keller. Alan Tosti? Yes. And Wanda Nazi-Mental? Not here. Dean Kerman? Not here. And Dave McKenna? Yes. 11, 11, 4, and 1 abstention. That's like it has been approved. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Robinson. Thank you for coming. I'll turn it back to you Charlie. Okay thank you. Thank you Joanne. You're welcome. So that covers our agenda materials for this evening our agenda items. Do we have any other business that anyone wants to bring up? Silence. What um or is someone's oh Sophie are you still waiting for something back from the Disability Commission? I am I met with Sandy and Julie this morning and I'm scheduling right now a time to talk to the co-chairs of the Disability Commission for probably Friday so hopefully Monday I can report back. Arif Padaria? Yes I have a question about recruiting for any open positions. I know there were some there were some candidates in the mix and is that is this appropriate to ask the question now? It certainly is. Let me because I actually have news some news. Oh good. The principal position that has been open for this year is precinct seven and Jonathan Wallach recommended gentlemen in that area who had to get his employer's permission to join the finance committee and it took a long time and he just recently got the permission but he's also um has a family problem and is probably not going to be able to participate in finance committee activities this spring. So my intention is that I haven't talked to him he's open email communications but I think what we'll try to do is get him to sign on towards you know in the next month or so so he'll be here for next year. But we we may still have some other openings so the question is um but what is your question? You want to thank my question so first thank you for that because now that I have I understand that I wanted to see how to accelerate or not accelerate the recruiting PR so to speak which we need to do from the from the communications group and I'll reach out to my group and start moving on that because it doesn't see so you've got one candidate that looks very promising but we still have some other openings as well that we know to go. Well we have we have we have several precincts and I and I can't remember which ones they are because we've just changed all the precincts but we have I think three or four precincts that have members at large who are doing different precincts and we have an obligation to try to recruit people from those precincts so that people actually living in the precincts. So I think I think it would be a good idea to to do some public relations communications with the community about the finance committee and the fact that there are you know potentially open positions so we can we can chat about that okay thank you yes indeed but that's a good idea thank you any other questions this evening a motion to adjourn is in order some any objections we're adjourned thank you very much everyone we'll see you on